Kite Photography

We got to spend a portion of our holiday weekend visiting some friends at Fiesta Island.  Since I'm neck-deep in my camper-conversion project, I didn't do a very good job of prepping the van for a day at the beach.  On the plus side, I did bring my kites and new carbon fiber KAP rig, so I was finally able to get some aerial shots with my little $40 Canon SD450 from Craigslist.

From FiestaIsland-2010-07-03

I used the Canon Hack Developers Kit (CHDK) running a script called "UltraIntervalometer" to run a timelapse program, taking a shot about once every 3 seconds. I just launched the kite and tied it off, then started the script and walked down the kite line a little ways and attached the rig, then let the kite fly! This was just my opening experiment, so I didn't spend very long taking shots or changing the aim point. I built my Picavet suspension rig in about an hour from some scrap carbon fiber, so its totally static, (making it very light!) but it means I'd have to walk down the line to change the aim. My biggest lesson learned was that I'll need to spend more time with the actual camera settings. Shooting mostly beige sand left the majority of my photos a bit washed out. I'll work on that.